“REGULATORS HAVE DROPPED THE BALL” SAYS FORMER COMMISSIONER

Interesting read from the Insurance and Investment Journal after they had conducted an interview with the former Commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission, Glorianne Stromberg. Ms. Stromberg does not hold back and gives her thoughts on the current state of the Canadian Securities Administrators.

““I don’t want to be unduly critical of the regulators, but they have dropped the ball,” she says, adding, “Their mandate is investor protection and yet the investor, the individual investor, is the last person on the totem pole that they ever think about”

She goes on to add, “They hold themselves out as offering advice, but it’s all a sales transaction. Their compensation structures are designed to force those so-called advisors or representatives to deal in those products (proprietary products or those underwritten by the company), or they’re without a job. They’re setting up irreconcilable conflicts of interest on all sides of every transaction.” It’s a situation she says most investors know very little about. “Then they talk about managing conflicts. ‘There’s nothing wrong with conflicts.’ But you know what? There is. There’s a lot wrong with them.”

Despite the article being written in November 2012, it still rings true in today’s Canadian Securities markets. The system truly is broken and in need of a large overhaul.